About
ncartmuseum.org
Click here

Artist

Romare Bearden

Nationality
American
Birth/Death
1912-1988

Learn More

Bearden Concept Map

view resource

Resources for Parents: Addressing Bias, Racial Identity, and Inequity with Children

view quick tip

DPI’s Teaching NC Arts Project

view resource

Black History All Year

view quick tip
Artwork by Romare Bearden
Work of Art
New Orleans: Ragging Home

About

Born in Charlotte in 1912, Bearden spent his childhood and adolescence in New York City’s Harlem–at the time of the Harlem Renaissance–and in Pittsburgh, with summer visits to North Carolina relatives. Through his parents, he encountered Harlem’s leading civic and cultural figures, including the great musicians of the day. After serving in the U.S. Army from 1942-1945, Bearden studied philiophy at the Sorbonne in Paris under the GI Bill. In the 1960’s his involvement with the Spiral Group, formed by black artists active in the civil-rights movement, stimulated his interest in the pasted-paper techniques of of photomontage and collage.

 

tags: NC art, NC artist, North Carolina

From Wikipedia

source content
Romare Howard Bearden (, ROH-mə-ree) (September 2, 1911 – March 12, 1988) was an American artist, author, and songwriter. He worked with many types of media including cartoons, oils, and collages. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bearden grew up in New York City and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and graduated from New York University in 1935. He began his artistic career creating scenes of the American South. Later, he worked to express the humanity he felt was lacking in the world after his experience in the US Army during World War II on the European front. He returned to Paris in 1950 and studied art history and philosophy at the Sorbonne. Bearden's early work focused on unity and cooperation within the African-American community. After a period during the 1950s when he painted more abstractly, the theme reemerged in his collage works of the 1960s. The New York Times described Bearden as "the…